Blogs from Vienna, Austria, Europe - page 109

Ok, this is from the Nationalfeiertag (Austria's independence day, more or less) in Vienna. Everything is closed, but there are celebrations, and stuff all over town. For instance, the Hofburg and Parlament are having 'Tag der Ofnen Türe' (Day of open doors) so you can go see some of the government buildings for free. The army (Bundesheer) was also on display celebrating at Heldenplatz (Hero's Square). So, while at Heldenplatz, we ran into a lot of the 'in' crowd... such as Heinz Fischer (the President), Herr Gusenbauer (the head of the Socialist Party of Austria, and probably the future Chancellor), as well as his People's Party counterpart, and current Chancellor: Wolfgang Schüssel, and a crowd of Austrian generals. url=http://fliqz.com/FliqzWebPublic/Dynamic/proxy.aspx?IsInPlayer=true&VID=3210&ORIVID=3210&fliqzster=true&from=permaThis is some grainy footage of some of the s... read more

I arrived in Vienna last night later than I was supposed to as I missed my train by a minute. I was going by the timetable in my book not realising that it might not be up to date. A very annoying lesson to learn at 6.30 in the morning. Especially when I didn,t sleep the night before thinking I could sleep on the train. Vienna is beautiful and the hostel I,m staying in is really cool (Wombat's). I worked up a sweat trying to cram in all the sights today including in the Schonbrunn Palace. I can definitely see myself living there and it was not hard to picture royalty using the property as a summer palace. Overall the architecture is great here but the highlight definitely has to be the cafes. The desserts are ... read more

After a weekend of staying in Prague rather than traveling, I decided that, no matter what anyone says, staying does not “allow me to see more of the city I signed up for.” In reality, staying in Prague ends up amounting to just drinking more beer - liters, in fact - and I’m definitely reaching my beer limit. On a whim, I decided with a group of three other people to go to Vienna last weekend. Because our night trip to Budapest just wasn’t sketchy enough (read the blog on Budapest to refresh your memory… it involved switchblades), we decided to take the night bus to Austria. I made sure to find out how safe these buses are (very, by the way, in case you were wondering) before I left, and they ended up being extremely ... read more

So, after a difficult week (way too much drama in the music department for my liking - I won't even go into it; missing the streetcar to go to the middle school; little things like that), I got to go last night to my friend Tara's birthday party. Bowling alleys and I really, really get along. Well, who doesn't like bowling, I guess? It has been SO long since I have done any bowling, and it is just the best stress-reliever ever! Even though I tied for the losing score. Haha. I got 68. That's pretty much the lowest score I think I have gotten in my life. Oh well, it's fun to lose sometimes. Anyway... here are some pictures from the Fun Night. ... read more

So, Eric and I sprang upon the once in the rare opportunity to serve as cheap immigrant labor on a farm, harvesting grapes for the wine. As I have probably mentioned, the drink in Austria is actually wine. And they seem to like their own wine more than anyone else's. At any rate, we went to this farm run by Tony and his wife Elfi where they let us cut grapes for them for a day, and in return we got many many many too many grapes, and grape juices, and mosts, and sturms and wines. Also, we should pour out some of that wine and remember Alia and Sandra, for they selflessly enabled us to go.... read more